Turns out the loss of singer/actress Katharine McPhee as headliner might have been the audience’s gain for Saturday’s Gala 2012 fund-raiser for Lehigh University's Zoellner Arts Center.

With apologies to McPhee, who pulled out less than two weeks before the show because of an unspecified medical condition, it’s hard to imagine a better show for the gala than the one given by McPhee’s replacement, singer/actress Kristin Chenoweth.

Kristin Chenoweth gives thumbs up at Zoellner Arts Center Gala2010 on Saturday. Then she gave a near-perfect performancePhotos by Brian Hineline/Special to The Morning Call

She and her brothers Shannon and Cal have opened shows for their father, country music legend Glen Campbell, at storied venues such as Carnegie Hall, where they played Oct. 13.

Ashkey Campbell performs with her father, Glen Campbell, in Philadelphia last fall

But Ashley says she realizes those amazing experiences will be coming to an end soon.

It has been two years since Glen Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and a little over a year since he began his “Goodbye Tour,” and his days on stage are nearing at an end, says Ashley.

A show Oct. 26 at Sands Bethlehem Event Center likely will be among the last dozen or so he’ll perform. He expects to stop performing altogether after a couple of dates in early December, Ashley Campbell says.

Ashley, 26, the youngest of Glen Campbell’s eight children — three by Kim, his wife of 30 years – talked in a recent telephone interview about her life with her father, what Alzheimer’s disease has meant to their family, and what the future looks like.

Here is a transcript of the call from Santa Monica, Calif., where Ashley and her parents live:

Kimbra’s introduction to most U.S. audiences came as the combative female voice on Gotye’s song “Somebody That I Used to Know.” But what an introduction it was. The song is the biggest-selling record of 2012, having spent eight weeks at No. 1 and selling 6.3 million copies.

But Kimbra has plenty of other songs. Her debut album, “Vows,” released in United States in May, hit No. 14 on the Billboard albums chart.

Kimbra

Even though she’s just 22, Kimbra Lee Johnson has been singing publicly for a decade.

At just 12, she sang the New Zealand national anthem before a full stadium rugby championship game, and by the time she signed with a management company at 16 had written a collection of songs.

In a recent telephone call from Germany, where she was about to play a show in Cologne, Kimbra discussed her career, her future and her role in “Somebody That I Used to Know.”

When singer Katharine McPhee dropped out last week as headliner for Zoellner Arts Center’s Gala 2012 fundraiser, Lehigh University announced it was because of an undisclosed health problem.

In having Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress and singer Kristin Chenoweth replace her, the university chose a performer eager to show her recovery from a health problem.

When Chenoweth takes the stage Saturday at Zoellner for a concert of show tunes, standards and songs from her own 2011 country album “Some Lessons Learned,” it will be her first public performance in more than three months — since a July 11 accident while filming the CBS-TV series “The Good Wife.”

Kristin Chenoweth

In a recent telephone call from her home in New York City, Chenoweth talked about the incident, her long recovery, and what it means to her career.

New Jersey roots rockers The Smithereens has been at its craft for more than 30 years, but when it plays a show, as it will tonight at Musikfest Café in Bethlehem, or record a new album, as it’s preparing to do, the process hasn’t gotten any easier, the band’s singer-songwriter, Pat DiNizio says.

The Smithereens, with Pat DiNizio far right

In fact, the band’s level of intensity has increased the longer its career has gone on, DiNizio says in a recent telephone call from his home in Scotch Plains, N.J.

In a world where audiences revere old blues singers for their authenticity and legacy to the music’s origins, rockabilly pioneer Wanda Jackson should be a queen.

Wanda Jackson

Not only did she single-handedly kick off the female presence in rock and roll, but her chirpy voice and feminine way were clear influences on artists as broad as Loretta Lynn and Etta James, Madonna and Katy Perry.

To see her in concert isn’t just about musical or vocal precision, it’s also about what she means to the music – although the music at Jackson’s show Tuesday at Sellersville Theater was crackling, and her vocal delivery exciting.

Three Italian teenagers performing old fashioned pop standards in an operatic style are not your typical stars. But Il Volo has rocketed to success in the last few years, with appearances on many TV shows, including "American Idol." On Monday night they showed about 1,100 fans at Easton's State Theatre how they have become idols themselves.

First of all, they are fabulous singers. They might look like a boy band, but they sound like the Three Tenors. And they put on a great show, with a multi-platformed stage, flashing lights and projections on three background screens. Most of the songs were in foreign languages, something American audiences do not usually accept. But the trio brought out the power and emotion in numbers like "Un Amore Cosi' Grande" and the Spanish "Reloj," so the lyrics were felt even if they were not understood.

At least this is what the growing fan base of spiritual Kirtan singers believe when they close their eyes and surrender their minds to the repetition of sacred sounds and prayers that are said to induce a state of meditation.

This type of music is popular among yoga practitioners who have learned about chanting as a way to delve deeper into their yoga practice. The late Beatle, George Harrison, liked to surround himself with Indian sanskrit chants, professing spiritual powers to the vibrations imbued in certain sounds.

You will have a chance to experience its power the weekend of Nov. 3 and 4, when two prominent voices in the spiritual Kirtan music movement perform in Bethlehem and Philadelphia.

On the first song Led Zeppelin plays in “Celebration Day,” the new film of its 2007 reunion concert at London’s 02 stadium that opens Oct. 17 for a two-day-only cinematic run, the viewer’s initial reaction may be to cringe.

Playing together publicly for the first time in 19 years, what was once the greatest rock band in the world looks startlingly older as it dives into “Good Times, Bad Times”: Singer Robert Plant like The Wizard of Oz’s Cowardly Lion, with a marcelled mane; guitar wiz Jimmy Page like a mad professor with a shock of white hair.

It sounds older, too: maybe more expressive, but certainly far less precise than in its prime. The viewer is tempted to tell himself, “Maybe it was a good idea that these guys haven’t toured.”

But over the film’s two-hour-and-four-minute running time (a full two hours of which is concert footage; more about that later), something wonderful happens.

Styx covered all its hits in a concert that marks the 40th anniversary release of its self-titled debut album.

The sold out show opened with "Blue Collar Man," showing off singer and guitarist Shaw's unbelievable guitar and vocal skills. Shaw, looking hot in his white blazer and tight leather pants, long blonde hair swinging, brought the crowd to its feet.

A voice in lead vocalist Ann Wilson that is without parallel among female rockers and, after 35 years, is still remarkable. A rocking attitude that helps push the band to a good performance, and a rocking four-person backing band.

1980s popster Rick Springfield is probably one of the last singers who comes to mind when you think of songs about apocalyptic upheaval.

Rick Springfield

Yet on Oct. 9, Springfield — he of “Jessie's Girl” and “Don't Talk to Strangers” — released “Songs for the End of the World.”

Its subject matter is precisely that, with songs titles such as “Wide Awake,” “Our Ship's Sinking,” “My Last Heartbeat” and “Depravity.”

But the new disc really isn't such a departure, says Springfield, who on Oct. 19 plays at Sands Bethlehem Event Center.

Springfield's best known for more sugary songs such as his Grammy Award-winning 1981 song “Jessie's Girl.” But he says his songwriting has been more weighty than perhaps it was perceived.

In a recent call from a car on the way to Los Angeles Airport to promote his Sands Bethlehem Event Center show, Springfield talked about the new album, his career and even his recent plea to drunken-driving charges.

There's vocalist and drummer Sanjay Seran and DJ and tabla player Tarun Nayar -- Vancouver residents with parents born in India.

Andrew Kim is a Korean who wears a kilt and plays electrified Indian sitar. Sara Fitzpatrick is a Candian fiddler and singer with Celtic music in her blood.

And Canadian Ravi Binning beats the connecting rhythms on the double-headed dohl.

The musical mix includes traditional sounds from India and Ireland, a little reggae, a little rock and a lot of electronic dance and hip-hop beats.

The brew defies genre but the goal is to create a dance party,

Delhi 2 Dublin brought the party to Zoellner Arts Center last night. It didn’t take long before the bold rhythms brought audience members to the dance floor at the front of the hall. The audience was genre-busting as well – young, older, fans of world music, Middles Eastern music and Indian beats.

Motown Records was a hit factory for black musicians in the early 1960s, churning out smash after smash R&B song. So hoping to follow that same path to success, the fledgling vocal group that singer Florence LaRue joined in 1965 naturally rehearsed Motown tunes.

The Fifth Dimension, with Florence LaRue in foreground

That is, until the group stumbled upon a decidedly un-Motown sunshine pop song that had failed to become a hit for its writers, and steered the new group on a different path.

That song, “Go Where You Wanna Go,” a failure for The Mamas & the Papas, became the first hit for The 5th Dimension. It started a run of more than 15 years on the charts that produced 17 Top 30 songs and won the group 14 gold records and six Grammy awards.

Those song — including “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” and the group’s signature “Up, Up and Away” — are ingrained in the public consciousness.

LaRue, in a recent telephone call from her home in “beautiful, sunny California,” says that when The 5th Dimension stops for two shows on Sunday, Oct. 14, at Sellersville Theater 1894, it has no option but to perform all its hits.

LaRue, 67, talked about the group’s music, history and future, and returning to the Delaware Valley – where she spent her formative years as a resident of Glenside, Montgomery County.

Jars of Clay’s two decades of growth from the edgy alt-rock group of the single “Flood” in 1995 through the organic acoustic approach of its mid-2000s records might have been a slow progression, but in concert it can make for an uneven and desultory presentation.

That’s true even when all of the songs are played unplugged and acoustic, as they were during a show Wednesday at Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem.

Seeing rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson, 1960s and ‘70s vocal The 5th Dimension, JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, “Late Nite Catechism: The Series” or The Music Of ABBA at an intimate venue such as Sellersville Theater 1894 is pretty cool.

Fate came knocking in two ways during the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s opening concert of its 40th anniversary season Wednesday night at the Williams Center at Lafayette College.

One was by way of the immortal opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The other was by the tolling of the bell that begins and ends Augusta Read Thomas’ Earth Echoes,” a tribute to Gustav Mahler, in its world premiere.

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.